Many people I know love to watch ‘fails’ on YouTube. One can’t help but smile when an overly confident teenager misses kicking the ball completely, and falls on his rear to the chorus of laughter from his off-screen friends.
There are also compilations of ‘wins’ on the aforementioned YouTube wherein people do the seemingly impossible, whether it’s remaining vertical and on their skateboard after jumping off a ladder, or making the perfect landing after spinning in the air multiple times.
So what does this have to do with anything?
Well, there are times in life when you do something half-right and it turns out really, really well. There are also times in life when you do something as it ought to be done, completely and without cutting any corners, and the end result is a disaster worthy of a YouTube video.
The selfsame thing that happens to us as individuals also happens to nations.
When a nation is under the blessing and providence of God, even when what it does isn’t totally right, or as reason dictates it ought to be done, the end result is good and noble and just. When God removes his blessing, however, no matter how hard we try or how many plans we put in place, things still turn out worse than we thought possible.
Yesterday a friend e-mailed me asking if I knew about the flu pandemic breaking out in America. Since I’ve been busy with the charity side of our work here, I had not gotten caught up on what has been going on in the States. As I started clicking through some articles, and seeing what has been going on the past couple weeks, I couldn’t help but think how truly helpless and impotent we are as individuals and as nations without the blessing and providence of God.
It doesn’t take battleships and rockets and asteroids to bring the whole machine to a screeching halt. It takes something as seemingly innocuous as a germ.
When God’s hand of protection is no longer upon a nation, everything is potentially lethal. It’s like taking an accident prone individual to the world’s biggest cutlery store. You don’t know what’s going to knick him, but you’re pretty sure something will.
In love, God has attempted to turn our hearts back to Him not once, not twice, but on multiple occasions using multiple means. It only took the nation of Israel seeing a cut up bull spontaneously combust on a makeshift altar to cause them to turn their hearts back to the Lord, but with each attempt at reconciliation, with each attempt at extending an olive branch we just slap God’s hand away and act as though he is a nuisance and an unwelcomed presence in our lives.
How many times can a nation turn its back on God and reject Him before He leaves the nation to the desires of its heart? How many times can we shake our fists at God and denounce His very existence before He removes His hedge of protection and by doing nothing more than no longer being for us, shows us the true measure of our impotence?
For anyone given to objective contemplation of recent events, it is undeniable that the worst possible outcome of any given matter has been taking place time and again. From hurricane Sandy, to political decisions, the ongoing drought, to cold snaps, to the virulent outbreak of the flu throughout the nation, it seems that try as we might, nothing seems to be going right.
No, this has nothing to do with odds and probabilities; it has nothing to do with the change in the Chinese calendar; it has to do with our continued rejection of a sovereign God.
No matter how hard we try to stick the landing, we will fail. No matter how hard we try to make it work, we will fall short of the mark. No matter how ingenious man might think himself to be, if God is no longer for him, it’s all folly and futility.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.
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I think this all applies to Christians. America used to be such a Christian nation that God took care of it in general. Now it is an anything goes nation, so God doesn't bother looking after it in general. He might still keep his own safe, but the rest who have no use for him or his people, he just leaves to themselves. With so much evil increasing in the world, that just means more trouble for everyone oustide of his hedge of protection.
It did seem like things used to go well rather easily. Now its is easy to get sick, if not from the flu, which people are getting from the flu vaccines themselves quite often, but also there is MRSA and Lyme disease and all sorts of new plagues. You can get bitten by a tiny tick or have vapor from someone full of sores land on you, then you are sick also. Doctors don't even know how to cure these things, so you are left to yourself to figure it out.
Without the leading of God, I don't see how people are going to make it.
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